


There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you

by Lavete



Series: Darth Vader Path [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Solo family feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6540196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavete/pseuds/Lavete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Han receives an unexpected visit from someone he never believed wanted to talk to him, death, alive or in any form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you

Han strode inside the _Falcon_ cockpit carrying a box with some parts, his secure steps faltering when he saw the man. There he was standing between the pilot and copilot seats, his hand looming over the controls.

“Who are you and how you entered my ship?” the man turned around giving him a sheepish smile. He was a good looking guy, with honey blond hair and a scar over his right eye.

“This is a nice ship, I always wonder how it manage to keep flying even in its circumstances”

“What circumstances?” Han outraged asked against his better judgment.

“Been a _piece of junk?_ ” the young man said in a teasing tone. Han’s frown deepened more. Whoever this guy believed to be he had the guts to broke into his ship and called it a _piece of junk_. He was not amused.

“I don’t know who you are…” he finally paid him all his attention, noticing his attire. A dark brown robe covered his rough fleece gray suit, a _Jedi_. His mind provided. But the only Jedi he knew was living in a temple, so maybe one of his apprentices.

The man had something that seemed familiar to him, but couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

“Who are you again” he sighed. Looking back again at the control panel of the _Falcon_.

“I cannot remember the last time I flew a ship for the pleasure of it. So much time and wrong doings had passed, I imagine”

Han snorted, so he was going to play that game.

“Luke sent you, isn’t it?” Han put his box on the floor “What he wants now?”

“You are going to have a visit in a few days. An unexpected one” Ha send him a glance that indicated him the irony of his words. “Please, I beg of you. _Listen to him_ ”

“Why?”

“It is important. I did so much wrong in my life, please do not allow him to take the same path as me”

Han folded his arms over his chest. He narrowed his eyes again, trying to find where he had seen this man before.

“You had never seen me before” he simply said. Han grunted. Definitely a Jedi. He had seen that trick before, by Luke and also by Leia. The man smiled again. “She has her mother spirit”

That gained his attention.

“Leia’s mother was brass as well”

“How do you know–” the man eyes seemed lost in his memories. “She has received many of my wrongs, so please do not permit that she keeps suffering”

“Leia?”

“He would be here soon. Don’t turn him around. He needs _you_ , now more than ever”

Han woke up startled.

It had been a dream. The sad look in the man face burned in his mind; there it was something in him that reminded him of someone else, someone he couldn’t remember now. And what he had said about Leia? He sighed, he was paying too much attention to a random dream he decided.

“Ouch! Kriffing burner” Han took his injured hand with the non-injured one sucking at his burned finger. Chewie roared from somewhere down “Yes, I know!”

I’m distracted. He couldn’t stop thinking in his dream, with the young Jedi and his mention of Leia, like he knew her personally, a thing that he doubted. Han tutted at himself; he was making so much of a dream. The guy probably didn’t even exist anyways.

He found himself thinking in the dream two days later when he received a surprising visit.

His son.

He had just been a child the last time he had seen him, and now in front of him was a boy half grown, much taller and worried. He still had his mother cheeks and the form of his own jaw still maintained, but the brooding now clouding his face was new.

“I just wanted to…” his voice had changed as well, it had become rougher and deep. “I needed to…”

Suddenly a loud wall of hair passed by his side and covered the boy, good thing Chewie still towered over him.

“I missed you as well,” said Ben with a small smile on his face, the Wookie roared again “I know I had grown”

He didn’t ask if he had permission to leave his training and let him stay, watching his now lanky and lumbering son remembering his old responsibilities and familiarizing with new ones. The advice of the Jedi repeating itself as a mantra in his mind. _Please do not allow him to take the same path as me._ But he didn’t even knew who this man was, yet the memory kept replaying, the sad features of the man tugging at his heart.

Han strode inside the _Falcon_ cockpit carrying a box with some parts, his secure steps faltering when he saw Ben. He was standing between the pilot and copilot seats, looking at the landscape on the other side of the glass. He probably sensed him as he turned around and the resemblance hit Han at full trot. He looked like the man in his dream.

It was something in the disposition of his eyes, forefront, lips, and nose. Not something you could specify, but the nature of it.

Suddenly the words of the man had more sense.  _I did so much wrong in my life_ , _please do not allow him to take the same path as me._

The man in his dream had to be… but couldn’t be possible. The man had to be Darth Vader.

“Is something wrong, father?” Han settled his eyes on his son, hardening his features

“Why are you here?” it was obviously the wrong thing to say as Han found out when Ben’s eyebrows touched each other in a terrible frown, his mouth pursed and his eyes turned a flame.

“Making the same mistake _again_ , believing _that you_ could help me when you don’t even understand or _care_ ” that was what he believe? Of course, he cared, he was his son.  He was about to open his mouth to rebuke at him when the man–Darth Vader– words came to him. _Please, I beg of you. Listen to him. Don’t turn him around. He needs you, now more than ever._

Han took a deep breath trying to calm himself, then he begin with a softer tone

“I care and even if I don’t understand I can try to help you.  We can look for a solution, together” Ben’s eyes softened a little, and then to his surprise, they started to water. His hands came to his temples pressing his short curls

“I’m being torn apart. I want–I want to be free of this _pain_ , father”   

Han took a step towards him and grabbed him by his shoulders. 

“The light and the dark call for me, the dark getting stronger every passing day” Han frowned, he didn’t or wanted ever to understand anything about the force, the light and the dark, but he could understand about right and wrong. He let his arms slip around his son hunched form and caressed his back, for a moment he believed he could feel his pain, sharing it, relieving him from it.

“I want to help you, in anything” Ben broke in sobs his arms curling around his neck.

“You had already. Just to been here the tug had moderated a little” he get quiet for a while, then with trembling voice he added “He had offered me power, a purpose in life if a follow his path”

“Who?”

“I think is my _grandfather_ ” Han stepped back from him; it had been public known recently about the lineage of his family. So was not surprising that Ben knew about his grandfather.

“ _Your grandfather_?”

“ _Darth Vader_ ” The same man that had visited him in a dream, requesting to _save_ his grandson from following his path, to replicate his wrongs.

“Your grandfather is not the man they make it believe. He turned to the light side at the end to save his son and right his wrongs” Ben seemed surprised by this new turn of events.

“He turned to the light again?”

“Right before his death. He actually sacrificed himself at doing it. I doubt he would like you to follow his path, a path that only brought sorrow to his family and to the galaxy”

“Then who has been speaking to me?”

“I don’t know, but we could find out if you _stay_ ”

Ben’s eyes lingered on his face; his own turned more relaxed at each passing second. Then he nodded.

Han smiled at him. He smiled him back.

_Thank you_. The voice of Darth Vader said to him. _Thank you_.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Han line before he went to his Starkiller mission when he wanted to say something to Leia but she didn’t let him and also by wondering which had been the final straw that broke Ben’s confidence on his father. 
> 
> The original ending was going to be Han forgetting Anakin advice until it was too late and the guilt of it been one of the reasons he refused to see Leia and been unable to come clean with her. But it changed someway during the writing and I end up giving them a happier ending (sort of). I liked this ending more. 
> 
> PS: Been a Reylo shipper at heart, I can imagine Ben and Rey crossing paths when they go to the rescue of the Falcon at Jakku after it been stolen. I giggle at the idea of at the amount of sexually frustrated banter between this two.


End file.
